Officials would meet on Tuesday (tomorrow) to decide the location for the women’s cricket team match in the Charbagh Tehsil of Swat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the assistant commissioner has said.

“We will organise the women’s cricket match but after deciding the location,” Muhammad Yar Khan told Aaj News via telephone on Monday. “We have so far not decided the location.”

His comments came after reports that local elders and residents stopped a cricket match between two women’s teams in the tehsil.

“We will have a meeting tomorrow [Tuesday] after that we will decide that location so that the women’s cricket team match can be held.”

The women’s teams from Kanju and Gulkada were playing a practice match when local elders gathered around the ground and barred the girls from playing on Sunday.

An eyewitness told Dawn that the elders began shouting at organisers and said it was immodest for girls to play cricket in the open ground and that they would never be allowed to do so.

However, the Imams of the locality also requested the vice chancellor to stop girls from playing cricket in their area.

The assistant commissioner and DSP arrived at the scene and cancelled the match temporarily.

The players termed their participation in cricket matches as their right and said: “We aspire to play at a higher level.”

Ayaz Naik, an organizer of the match wondered about the elders’ and locals’ behaviour he said that these girls want to play professionally.

He added that he and his daughter along with professional cricketers organized the match in Charbagh Cricket Stadium because construction work was underway in Mingora.

Charbagh Chairman Ihsan Ullah said that the people are not against women playing cricket, however, the match was cancelled due to the security situation in the area.

He added: “If organisers had informed us about the match earlier, we would have organised the match in a ground with boundary walls.”